In brief

Jeff Koons's Naked Vanity Fair Spread Inspires Internet Meme

It's been a big few days for artist-inspired internet memes. First, Ai Weiweiused his leg as a makeshift gun, spawning a bevy of copycats. Now, it seems Jeff Koons's already-infamous, naked-but-for-one-well-placed-letter Vanity Fair spread, shot by Annie Leibovitz, has garnered some amusing responses from the internet community. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Naked Koons spoofs, as they've been dubbed, are rife with "heady references to the French avant-garde of the early 20th century and Norman Rockwell." It was really only a matter of time.

The meme seems to be in its larval stages currently—a Google search for "naked Jeff Koons" (which, no, is not something I ever imagined I would be Googling) returns mostly the very NSFW images from Koons's "Made in Heaven" series, created with his ex-wife Cicciolina. But as Koons fever heats up in anticipation of the impending Whitney Museum of American Art retrospective, we heartily encourage any design-savvy readers to take part.